OpenForum – a blog by the Health and Human Rights community

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical company, has announced in its annual corporate responsibility report that it will donate more than 800 patents to a pool that will be open to all researchers trying to develop medicines for 16 neglected diseases, according to the Wall Street Journal. It also pledged to cut the price of 110 patented medicines in LDCs, the world’s poorest 50 nations.

Balancing intellectual property rights with global health considerations has long been a contentious issue in public health. The $800bn pharmaceutical industry has been criticized in recent years for putting profits ahead of the needs of people in the developing world. This announcement marks an important step toward increasing access to medicine in the developing world, and following through with several of the recommendations made by Paul Hunt, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to health from 2002-2008. Two years ago, he estimated that 2 billion people don’t have access to essential drugs, and urged that drugmakers support research for neglected diseases and cut prices in poor countries, among other recommendations in his guidelines for pharmaceuticals. Finally, a step in the right direction.

Yet GSK’s approach is still plagued with problems; it does not include HIV patents, and their drugs will still remain unaffordable to most poor people, including middle-income countries with large poor populations, like India. In order for sustainable progress to occur, the whole pharmaceutical industry must undergo a radical shift in mindset and practice. Drugmakers must begin to operate on the notion that need, not profit, should drive innovation, and as Amy Kapczynski argues in her article, “patents are not ‘rights,’ but rather privileges – and they do not come before the rights to health and life.”

See also:

Response from Merck & Co. to Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access to Medicines, Prepared by the U.N. Special Rapporteur, Paul Hunt – Merck & Co., Inc., Feb 2008

Global Pharmaceutical Patent Law in Developing Countries: Amending TRIPS to Promote Access for All – bepress Legal Series, Mar 2006